Recommendations for interstate removalists for a move from Canberra?

We are relocating and need to get a household full of stuff to Melbourne in a few months time. Does anyone have any recommendations for good removalists?

(I realise that there is a certain counter intuitive quality to the question, in that those that have made a similar move are probably not reading RiotAct anymore, but if you’ve recently packed Gran off interstate and have something to contribute please feel free!)

I wish I could reccommend a good one. My experience and my friend’s and family’s experiences with a range of companies haven’t been great. I can offer some guidance:
- at least use a member of AFRA, listed on their website
- insure everything, or at least the most valuable things
- keep in constant contact with them about where your goods are, have they arrived yet, when will they go from the depot to your house.
- get everything in writing and keep it
- make sure you check that you get charged correctly.
Hope this helps!

I used Fastmove to move here from Melbourne. They were stupidly cheap and I was nervous that they might end up doing a dodgy job but they were great! They handle moves in the reverse too. In case you want to save a few bucks, go with them. They used some gorgeous South American lads as the removalists. They weren’t the best communicators but as soon as I started pointing to where things should go rather than describing the location, it was magical!

I used Allied Pickfords when I moved to Canberra from Sydney at the start of last year. It cost me around $2000 to move the contents of a one bedroom unit and have it stored for 4 weeks while I found somewhere to live. (By way of comparison, 12 months earlier it had cost me $600 to move the same furniture 1km into the next suburb.)

I got quotes for AP, Crown and another large/national mob I can’t remember the name of. AP wasn’t the cheapest, but they were the only one who sent out a consultant to actually look at the furniture for the quote – the others just relied on what I’d entered into their online form.

No recent experience at moving interstate but, after having large and bulky goods and materials moved to Canberra, I suggest that you make sure that any goods are not transferred en route if at all possible. All of our problems (eg damages, lost goods) seem to occur when goods are transferred between trucks and/or companies.

Also, based on local removal experience, get a fixed price. We once stupidly agreed to an hourly rate only to find one of the two removalists was a tiny female (I’m sorry but she wasn’t physically strong enough for the job) and the job took much longer than necesary. It also turned out that the truck was too small for the job and if we hadn’t told them to forget it, they were going to have to do a second trip.

Defence Housing used Dawson’s for us when my husband left the army and we moved to Canberra from Sydney. They were brilliant, nothing went missing, nothing broke and we were more than happy with them.

However, a friend recently got posted away from Canberra, and they also used Dawson’s. Their fridge arrived dented, their chest freezer dented, their washing machine dented, their dryer dented. Their microwave was completely broken. They had some nice artwork and the removalists put them in facing each other, so the paint rubbed off and onto the opposite canvas. They had come quite expensive suede couches that were 100% stain-free when the removalists wrapped them in plastic, but for some reason when the plastic was removed at their new place they were disgustingly dirty and smelly? Half their boxes went missing, and took a couple of weeks to find. They didn’t properly wrap my friends model planes, and they ALL got destroyed.

Dawson’s had to pay for all of this to get fixed/replaced/cleaned, except the model planes, as my friend had signed the paperwork saying they arrived safely before he actually checked (idiot!). They were worth thousands of dollars.

Get several quotes, there will be a significant difference between them. Talk to the people quoting about what you want moved and any special items – art work, antiques, wine collections etc. the way these items will be packed, handled and transported affects the cost. Don’t use the insurance cover offered by any of the removal firms – talk to your insurance broker instead, you’ll get better cover for about half the price.

Well the move to Melbourne was done, and it went well. We got quotes from Allied, Grace Bros and Crown, and there wasn’t much in it. We eventually went for Crown. But when we had to delay the move for a month and get a new quote for about 60% of the amount of stuff we were originally taking the quote went up $300!

On the basis of a relative’s experience we got a quote from National Capital Removals in Mitchell. They came out to have a look at what we had, were VERY competitive with their quote, and the people we dealt with (Angie in the office and Steve in the truck) were great. I’d highly recommend them. No slick corporate uniforms but nice people and very hard workers.

We have just moved from Canberra to Melbourne and would happily recommend Dawsons.

In the early stages, when we were still trying to get quotes, they were the only company who we contacted (we also contacted Wridgways, Allied Pickfords and White Knights) who were proactive in getting back to us and promptly answering all our questions.

They were also the cheapest by a long shot (half the price of Wridgways and about 25% less than Allied Pickfords) and were the only ones who could deliver within a week of picking up. Allied Pickfords estimated that their delivery would be 2-4 weeks from pick up.

At pickup (on a Friday) they were very professional and efficient. They turned up on time and carefully arranged our goods in their truck. They also had plenty of boxes handy to pack any of our goods that could be consolidated into bigger boxes.

At delivery (the next Wednesday, five day after pickup), they arrived six hours late, and weren’t very good at keeping us updated about their delays, which is the only complaint we can make against them.

All the goods arrived and were in the same condition as they were picked up, even though the goods had clearly been moved to a smaller truck for delivery.

On a side note, at the same time that we had goods delivered from Canberra to Melbourne, we also had goods delivered from Sydney with Wridgways. They were good in the administrative side before pickup but were more than two hours late to pickup the goods. They did not bring any boxes with them, even though their instructions mentioned that they should bring bike boxes to transport our bikes.

Delivery then occurred 4 days later than we expected given our conversations over the quoting period. The goods also were shifted from the pickup truck to a train and then to a delivery truck. This had not been explained at any stage. Furthermore, there were a number of breakages. It was a shame to have such a bad experience, because we had moved with them previously and they had been very good and had been recommended by others.

I don’t recommend Grace Removals in Canberra. We moved a 3 bedroom house from Canberra to Sydney recently. We hired Grace to pack and they came around to quote. On the day they sent one poor old guy and hour before the removals team to pack our entire house. How ridiculous! We ended up doing most of it ourselves. We left just the kitchen to them and they ended up not packing any of the cutlery or utensils. Our landlord found them and boxed them up for grace. They did collect the box but to this day we don’t have them. We have contacted grace but they never reply.

Then, when they delivered our furniture to Sydney they had lost our 2 seater and 3 seater couches. Yes, they would be rather hard to lose! In the following weeks they didn’t call or follow up and never replied to our emails. We had to contact the Sydney branch to get any response. Thanks to the Sydney operations manager we eventually got our couches delivered several weeks later.

Throughout this experience the staff were rude, threatened us, totally unprofessional and lacking anything you could call customer service. I have since mentioned our experience to all my friends and family and in doing so heard similar stories about grace removals from them. I recommend you use someone else! Even if an employer is picking up your removals bill.

I recently moved away from the ACT and used Chess Removals. I was initially going to use a cheaper (backloading) company however their truck size was far too big for my driveway (in a strata) so I went with Chess who had a range of truck sizes at their disposal. They were on time, fast and friendly and not one damaged item. I transported my tv/computer in my car however – I just don’t trust removalists with electronics. Their quoting service was very quick and the office was very helpful with queries I had.

I know it’s been a while since the OP, but I used this thread recently to decide on removalists when travelling from Perth to Canberra, and I just wanted to add a +1 for Allied Pickfords.

They were polite, helpful, on time, and their quote was lower than Backloaders.

We used Chess to go from Canberra to Perth in 2011 and though the salesperson was helpful and reassuring, the blokes doing the uplift didn’t deliver on some of his promises – such as individually packing our artworks. A couple of our things got dented, but not enough to bother lodging a claim. Also all the stickers they put on furniture are still on many of our objects – they just don’t want to peel off! After that experience we chose not to use them for the return trip.

I contacted Grace for a quote both times, and no-one ever got back to me, so I’d suggest avoiding them altogether!

My folks moved 40cubic metres from a 4 bedroom house in Brisbane to Canberra earlier this year and used National Capital Removals. They were flexible with dates so we got a back load for a cheaper rate.

Door to door service with pickup on the Thursday before Easter and drop off the following Tuesday. The blokes were fantastic and everything arrive okay. I did most of the organising and they were great to deal with. Highly recommended.

I absolutely recommend Mitchell’s Family Removals. I have used them for moving goods to Queensland on two occasions and Colin Mitchell has proven his worth. Good care and great communication all the time.

Call Colin Mitchell the owner: 0418 430 422 / 6278 3621

Side note: I had to use Regal Removals for some goods recently as Colin wasn’t available in time and the washing machine still hasn’t arrived after a month! It went Gold Coast- Canberra- Melbourne-Brisbane-then disappeared.

I used King and Wilson for last year’s move from Sydney to Canberra. Very reasonably priced. They picked up my belongings on the Saturday in Sydney and they arrived, as agreed, on the following Thursday in Canberra. Nothing broken or missing and very pleasant removalists to boot. They operate nationally and internationally.

I’ve used Chess a couple of times and been pretty pleased with them. We recently moved from Canberra to Sydney and used them. They’re not the cheapest (I think moving our 2BDR place with insurance was $5700 or slightly over) but they are easy to deal with and efficient (I should mention that price included full pack, packing materials and unpack to bench-level, plus insurance).

Others have used Grace and all experiences with them have been dire.

I have used Wridgways before moving from melb to Canberra and found them good (but others had bad experiences).